What Is Art?

Da Vinci's Mona Lisa

The answer to this question in a definitive, all agreed upon, 2+2=4 kind of way is as asymptotic a pursuit as finding The Loch Ness Monster or locating Atlantis. It will never be done but the journey may allow the traveler to see sights that would otherwise remain hidden for a lifetime. The paradox is that we all, to some degree, know what art is. We understand that Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, arguable the most recognized piece of art in history, is art. We comprehend that the photographs of Ansel Adams or Herb Ritts represent something far loftier than what is in our Instagram library. We can view the iconic pieces of Cubism or the utterly deconstructed elements of Jackson Pollock’s Abstract Expressionism and respond to them in ways far different than what our toddlers do with crayons. So the first trap is clear: we are not meant to discover or answer “what is art?” The real question seemingly becomes: Why Is This Art? 

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Why has a 30”x20” portrait of a woman with a somewhat smug smile captivated imaginations for centuries? Why do we look at Picasso’s works and intuitively understand that this revolutionary method of fusing time and space onto canvas provides a depiction of subject matter at once more real and more metaphysical? Why do people look at Pollock’s work as, initially, a great psychic con, the passing of epic doodles as something more…only to forever feel nostalgia for that golden, singular moment when the composition of color lost its chaos and transformed into a laser-accurate insight into the human condition. 
 
And what of the others? What about those forever beyond the glory of being namesakes for crime-fighting turtles? While Banksy serves as the embodiment of graffiti as art, how many thousands are considered to be nothing more than vandals? For every unique instance of a Monet or Wyeth, how many thousands also draw trees, rivers and barns with no legacy to dream of? Have they not produced art? 

The greatest creative and philosophical minds we have known have taken their respective shots at this: The Atlantic – Definitions Of Art 

Agree to disagree seems to be the order of the day…and yet a unifying thread can be found which brings us back full circle: We know what art is. Each of us. The issue is simply one of magnitude. There are several billion people on our ball of blue and green and, by extension, there are several billion definitions of what is art and why it is art. Overlap is extensive. After all, we are all just a few sequences of nucleotides away from each other. But the entirety of the definition remains as unique to each individual as their own DNA code. And therein lies the beauty! 

From humble beginnings rooted in a carefully curated collection of iconic pieces of art and some stuff we thought was pretty cool to look at, PingoWorld commits itself to a never-ending quest to respectfully serve each of our current and future customers. We celebrate your diversity and respect your notions of art. We applaud and do not judge that one person may want a certain product because of the intensity of the emotion it evokes while another wants the same exact piece because it really matches the rug. It is, after all, your life and we want to be your trusted partner in decorating it!

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